The Voice Beneath
by moonswirl
Summary: Prelude #13 to ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH, coming in July. (See author's note inside) An AU story set across the Arrowverse. In this installment: The tale of how the Waverider fell into the hands of ARGUS, and the creation of its A.I., 'Cat.'


_**A/N:** I was meant to start writing and posting these back in January, however life happened, and progress didn't happen, so now here I am, a little over two months late but finally kicking things off! This coming July, as I've done for the past two summers, I'll be leading a 100-day countdown story set across the Arrowverse (featuring Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow). I decided to do things a little differently this year. For one thing, the entire 100 days will be a single story spread over 100 days, one chapter to every day. And for another, the more planning I did, I saw the possibility and the need to lay in some ground work in the form of preludes._

 _Twenty-four prelude one-shot stories, six each to the four series (again, it was meant so that each month from January to June would have one of each show, but now… yeah ;)), posted every 5 (or 6) days._

 _The story this will all be leading to, **Once More Unto the Breach** , is an alternate universe story (not another Earth, ha :D), which will soon become evident enough. It's very possible you do not watch all four of the shows, but I highly encourage you to seek out the other preludes, as they will help to fill in this world I'm very excited to share with you guys!_

 _Alright, enough chit chat, let's go! If you have any questions, send them my way and I'll be happy to answer them!_

* * *

 **THE VOICE BENEATH  
** _Prelude to_ _ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH  
_ (13 of 24)

 **Location:**  
 **IN THE BOWELS OF THE TIME SHIP WAVERIDER**  
 _ **(GRANT INNOVATIONS designation)**_  
 **IN THE BOWELS OF THE BREACH SHIP WAVERIDER**  
 _ **(ARGUS designation)**_

"Cat, do we have a location on the breacher?" Lucy Lane asked, standing on the bridge with M'gann, both of them attempting to locate the breacher who had just evaded them. As well as their whole team could work together, to accomplish the task set upon them, it wasn't impossible for someone to slip past them and force them to redouble their efforts in finding them and returning them where they belonged. Add to it the fact that, unless their crossing was an accident – which it rarely was – once they knew how to make that crossing, there was every possibility they would do it again. Some of the breachers they would go after were now several crossings into their 'career,' and even if they always ended up getting taken back by the Waverider's crew, they would inevitably give it another go. "Cat? Are you there?"

"Now, where else would you have me be, Miss Lane?" her voice was heard, barely hiding a slightly annoyed turn at the impatience with which she was summoned. "And yes, here are the coordinates," she went on, and they appeared on a screen before the two women.

"You know, for an A.I., that's some attitude," M'gann told Lucy, who bit back a smirk.

 _Oh, if you only knew._

Some days, she thought about going up there to say hello, just to see the looks on their faces. Imagine their surprise if they knew the 'artificial intelligence' known to them only as 'Cat,' the one they had confided in with many a secret, the one who had watched them for as long as they had resided aboard the ship, was not some piece of programming but rather a real, live, human being, living just decks below them all along. Imagine if they new that she, Catherine Grant, had been in charge of the construction of this very ship, along with the company she had created, in a centuries-distant future.

Of course, there was plenty that her crew of eleven didn't know. Not that they were _her_ crew, officially speaking, no. She was just an A.I. after all, right? No, officially, their captain had a crew of ten. Their captain… Even he didn't know the truth about her, and he had been the first of them to ever set foot aboard the Waverider, right before he'd stolen it and brought it back to his present time.

Surely he hadn't meant to kidnap her. He hadn't known she was aboard, no one had. But the Waverider was about to be officially unveiled to her investors as Grant Innovations' latest model, which would cement their reputation as the top of the line, and the night before the presentation, unable to sleep, she had made her way back and snuck aboard, to run one final inspection. It never hurt to be thorough, did it? She'd been deep below deck when a signal appeared in the corner of the screen she'd been reading. Someone else was on the ship, someone who had neither right nor reason to be on the ship. It had taken her just seconds to pull up footage of him sneaking his way aboard, to find him making his way down this hallway and that one.

A spy maybe? From one of her competitors? She had watched him, followed his progress, without calling in for support, for backup, out of… curiosity, maybe? There was something about him that told her he was not a spy, but what was he? He didn't work for her, she made it a point to know the face and name of each one of her employees, if for no other reason than to be able to spot out someone who didn't belong there. This one didn't belong, for so many reasons. The first thought that began to cement her future, of all things, was 'He looks bewildered.' Now, true, her ship was – as her company's name would promise – an innovation, but there was a limit to how much this could all catch someone by surprise.

So she had used the ship's computers to attempt to identify him. What she found was only the tip of the iceberg.

The man who had broken into her ship was named Leonard Snart… and he had been born in the year 1972. A time traveler? Breaking aboard a time ship? She had always been one for intrigue, but this… this was a new one for her. Was he attempting to steal the Waverider? As flattered as she might be that he should choose _her_ ship to steal, she simply couldn't allow it. She was still watching him. If he was from so far in the past, unless this wasn't his first go through time, there was no way he would know how to even get the ship going enough to steal it, right? Looking at him, she felt that much was true, and it was reassuring. But… But what if, in his attempt to steal it anyhow, he ended up causing damage, what if he impeded her presentation, which was now a mere six hours away? She had to think of something fast.

From the room where she'd been working when she'd become aware of his presence, she could patch her voice through to him, but… what if he was dangerous? She _was_ all alone… This may have been her ship, that she knew inside and out, but self-preservation had wedged itself far enough into her thoughts that she had opted out of running, and of giving him any reason to come to seek her out. So what option did that leave her?

Why, to pretend not to be real at all… of course. (In hindsight, she would concede this was not her brightest idea… It lacked some forethought… a lot of it, actually.)

And thus, the A.I. simply known as Cat had been born, waiting for just the right moment to feign accidental activation. She had broken out her best interpretation for the situation and addressed her thief. Her thief had but one request: to help him get out of there. To her amazement, she had realized he didn't even understand just where he was. He understood that this was a space ship, sure, but he didn't know it was a time ship. Playing the innocent A.I., she had been able to figure out a thing or two about this man Snart. For one thing, yes, he had traveled in time, but he hadn't done it intentionally or by his own design. He had been left to cope as best he could with this new circumstance, which had apparently been going well enough, up until trouble had landed him here, on this night.

So how had they all found themselves back in the early 21st century, ferrying breachers from Earth to Earth, quarter to quarter? How had she spent the last years perpetrating this artificiality act? Well, strictly speaking, it had been her own fault.

Because back on that first night, still in the future, when Leonard Snart had broken aboard her ship, something very peculiar had happened. Even as she continued to speak to him, in an attempt to get him _off_ the ship, she'd looked over and she'd watched, as letters started to appear on one of the wall panels. They would appear, one after the other, as though they were being burned into the metal and just as quickly cooling off, solidifying, as though they'd been there for a while already. This would already have been baffling in and of itself, but then it was what the letters spelled out.

GET HIM HOME.

And just under that, a small figure she recognized at once for what it meant. No one else knew that symbol or what it represented for her… no one except her. The message was from her, except it would mean… she had somehow traveled into her past in order to convince herself to get _him_ to _his_ present? She could have ignored it, she could have, she… No, she couldn't ignore it. As strange as it was, she had known that, as strange as it all was, she needed to do this. In all likelihood it would mean her ruin if she couldn't get back in time for the presentation, in time to replace the wall panel. But, hey, this was a time ship, wasn't it?

The Waverider had taken its maiden voyage that night, taking Leonard Snart back to the year 2014. That was nearly four years ago now, and oh how differently had things gone. Did she still believe she would ever make that presentation, that she would ever reintegrate her old life, out in the future? It all depended on whether she answered you or she said what she really believed.

For the past few years now, her ship, the crown jewel of her innovations, had been in the employ of ARGUS. How this had all come to pass, that was not her tale to tell. What she _could_ say was that, stuck in her hiding place, pretending to be little more than programming and a voice, she had been hoping to get her sole passenger off the ship, telling herself that she would have done her part and she could then return to where she belonged and get on with her life. But that had not happened. Instead, she had been forced to further expand what had started out as no more than a small fib. Suddenly there were more people on board the ship, and even if they were of the 21st century, too, some of them might have had more of a chance to figure their way around the ship. And they might find her, and then… then…

Of all places for her to find herself stranded aboard her own ship, she at least had ended up in the best one she could have hoped for. Once she'd pulled her sleeves up and set to work, she had been able to quickly install some safeguards that would shield her from being found out for who and where she was. Her room became undetectable, and so did she. 'Cat' became something they could confirm as being part of the ship. Any and all information they were not to come in contact with, she had locked away, so that she alone could access it. Again, all this had been done with the intent of being little more than subterfuge, until such a time as she could escape with the ship, back to where and when she belonged.

Days had turned into weeks, and suddenly there were people living aboard the ship, and they were traveling across breaches, and they were doing… well, what they were still doing today. And with those days and weeks, she had started her life as a ghost aboard her own creation.

It was to her benefit that she knew the place better than any single other person in the world, and anyone else who might have rivaled that knowledge would not be born for centuries. It allowed her to survive, to carve out a semblance of comfort for herself. From her hiding space, she could monitor the eleven life signs aboard the ship, know where they were at all times, while they had no idea she was there at all. It made it so she knew when it was safe to wander out, for supplies when they were needed, and for food when her stocks were running low. It was just the only way. Revealing herself, she firmly believed, would lead to their taking her off the ship at one time or another, and as far as she was concerned, she had no wish to separate herself from her ship until she could do so in her own time. If she left, they could take her ship away from her. That was not going to happen. She was lending her services and her creation, and that was all. This was still _her_ ship.

 _Her_ ship had been put through the wringer a few times in the years it had spent in the employ of ARGUS. It was lived in now, and it would take some work to get it back to the way it had been when they'd left the future, in time for the presentation. And as much as a part of her continued to cling to the assumption that in the end she would return to her time, that it was what she needed to do, there was another part that knew that this was where she had always been headed. How had she missed it?

She had named the Waverider after an obscure old ship she had read about once, when she was younger. The story's details had evaded her, as had the source, when she'd tried to find it again years later, but the name had stuck. The Waverider. It was a year into her travels with the crew that lived on the upper decks that she started to get that feeling of déjà vu and she slowly came to the realization that the Waverider she had read about… was _her_ Waverider. She had always been headed here. Even the symbol she had carved with the message that convinced her to fly Leonard Snart into the past… it had been the one other thing she remembered from that text about the ship. They had been her motivation to start her company… How was that for a self-starter?

It was after that, on a night where she could disappear off and be certain to find the ship waiting again when she got back, that she had taken her only journey out of the Waverider, by sailing on the jump ship to just one hour before she was set to come aboard for her insomniac middle of the night inspection, burning the message into the wall panel, and returning to her ship, knowing she had just set events in motion, as they had been meant to happen… if it could even be said that she'd had a choice in the matter. It had always been headed for this, hadn't it?

It was never so lonely as it could seem. True, she had not stood face to face with another human being since the night she'd started her life as an A.I., but it wasn't like she had no contact with other people. She had her crew. True, they thought she wasn't real, but even that could be debated. After all this time, they had gotten to a place where she was almost one of them, hadn't they? They surely would have been lost on countless occasions if it hadn't been for her intervention, something she found a way to remind them of whenever they got a bit too pushy, thinking they were doing just fine on their own.

She would get curious, sometimes, if only sometimes, about the world outside her ship. They had traveled so much, all of them, across this breach and that breach, and though her sensors could tell her and show her plenty of what lay out there, she had not experienced any part of it. The majority of her world was this compartment. It was vast enough that she didn't feel completely boxed in, but it didn't allow her to forget where she was either. Oh, how her rivals would have laughed, to hear the great Catherine Grant had become a shut-in hermit aboard her own ship, playing the part of the lowly A.I.

None of that mattered, not here, not now. She had given herself to this life, and in its own way this life had given her plenty to be proud of. They helped people, protected them, and she was a part of that. She had a direct effect… or her crew did… a crew that couldn't have done any of what they did if not for her ship, her creation… so there.

 _Proximity alert!_

The screen had been flashing with these words, as it did whenever any of the crew would walk by the hidden door of her compartment, but then none of them knew it was there, so she would only ever give it a cursory look before confirming it was nothing, as usual, and get back to whatever she had been doing, while the crew member kept on its way down the hall.

Only this time they didn't just keep on their way. The man had walked by, with a purpose she couldn't know at first. He'd walked past, and just as the alert had faded away, it had flared back up: he was coming back the way he'd come. She'd rolled her eyes. Winn Schott… He must have forgotten something and gone back for it. Except… Again, the alert faded, and again… _Proximity alert!_ Now Catherine got up, watching more attentively. He was looking for something. The alert faded… _Proximity alert!_ He'd made another pass, and then… he'd stopped. He was standing, quite literally, an arm's length from the hidden door. She watched him there on the screen, her heart beating furiously in her panic. What should she do? 'Cat' could draw him away, but to do what? And what was there to keep him from returning to his search after?

There was little else for her to do.

Messing with the oxygen levels out in that one hall had been relatively easy for her to do, truly. Mr. Schott had dutifully passed out, falling slowly to the ground. When he was out, the door had been opened, and with some effort, Catherine Grant had pulled him inside the compartment before shutting the door again. She'd stood there, anxiously tapping her foot, watching him, until he started to regain consciousness and opened his eyes. His confusion settled into shock as he found her standing there.

"Afternoon, Mr. Schott," she sighed, and his eyes grew even wider.

"Cat?"

THE END

* * *

 _Check out the next prelude, coming May 10th!_


End file.
